Is this ignorance or just 2025?

Agreed - I wouldn't have any angst about dressing for a black tie event (not that I've been to any for some time), but have stressed inordinately about what appropriate office wear for my new job should be 🤣. When I first qualified, suits (and 5 days in the office) were mandatory....returning to a professional role after a 15 yr career break is eye opening.

I was mid fifties before I had to attend a black tie event and I was pretty clueless

think it’s a class thing

I do know what it means for a bloke but not sure what I'd be expected to wear as a woman ( I'd be TOTALLY out of my comfort zone).
Me.and hubby met at uni, teachers, been married 27yrs , he is now a HT and we've NEVER been to a black tie event and I dont know many who have, It's just not the circles we are in.
I dobt think many 22yr olds would know.

Grads from what? From school? I've only ever heard that term in the US. Is it used elsewhere for people leaving school? Or is your village next to a university?

We had a year 11 prom in 1995. It was seen as quite unusual then and rather pretentious. Which it was. I don't remember what the boys wore. Maybe black tie. Can't imagine many of them went on to wear it again any time soon if at all. 2 years later at the end of the 6th form at a different school it was much more low-key.

@DappledThings in the village my trio grew up in; the grads all went to one spot for photos the whole village would go watch. Girls in ballgowns and Boys in rented formal wear,
From suits to Tux’s and kilts.
An easy opportunity to discuss all things formal fashion;

Never been to a black tie event in my life. We didn't have balls we had discos so there was only ever 1 DJ present.. I would find it hard to know what to wear myself. I am a short ass so anything mid calf on most people is floor length on me. I do remember at on point a friend having to wear a cocktail dress for her work Christmas outfit and we had absolutely no idea what it was.

We are in our fifties and have always said ‘DJ’ for dinner jacket. Met at uni in London in the nineties and knew the phrase from then..

@Panicmode1 totally agree that people are less formal nowadays. Suits and ties went out sometime ago in the office for the majority of people sometime ago and things have got less formal over the last 5 years.

Probably because you didn’t talk to him about different dress codes when the opportunity arises, for instance prom etc.

I’m 72 and have gone to many black tie events since I was in my early twenties. I came from what would have been called a lower middle class family. My dad would hire a dinner suit for his annual work dinner dance. However as a student we had two or three black tie events every year and many of the boys had their own suits often handed down from other family members. One famously wore his grandfathers suit and continues to do so, proud that he can still fit in it.

we still love a black tie event using almost any excuse - new year, posh birthday party, club dinners etc to get dressed up. We find some if the younger crowd might wear a lounge suit instead. Encourage him to dress up, hire a suit, it’ll do wonders for his confidence.

It very much depends on your background whether you would know this. I was brought up in a working class area of a northern town and went to Manchester University. I worked out that DJ referred to dinner jacket as opposed to disk jockey but I had to google what exactly a DJ or black tie is. I don’t think my husband ever wore one in his life. Call it ignorance if you like but it’s not just 2025. Consider whether you have a tendency to be a snob.

I think it’s more ignorant of you to be judging him for not knowing rather than him being ignorant for not knowing.

i am a professor at a RG uni... i have no clue either, and that does not make me feel particularly inadequate.

What's a grad season? The time when people are graduating? Surely that only happens once for most people and it has no relation to black tie.

Never been invited to a black tie event yet had two university stints and various jobs over forty years. Think they must be dying out a bit so wouldn't be at all surprised if people did not know this dress code let alone the DJ abbreviation.

For plenty of 20-somethings, their first ever black tie event is a wedding or a work do.

Why would young farmers equal black tie?? That is baffling to me. Young farmers here wear those outback shearing tops and 2 tone shorts, plus boots. Plus a mullet if they also play rugby

Woah, no! Not in this home. Other than 'make sure you dress smartly for a job interview' I have failed to coach my son in clothing etiquette.

Regarding the black tie event, @Andonemorething25 , I'd be wary of urging this person to go full DJ without checking what others are wearing. I'm hazy about these things (despite going to a posh university), but my best guess is that, these days, it just means that the dress code is smart, not that you need to go to Moss Bros and dress up like you were in a Hugh Grant movie

I don’t think the DJ abbreviation is that bizarre that you could say her friends made it up 🤣. I’ve heard of it, and dinner jacket, and black tie, and tux, and tuxedo. I’m not in some upper class social circle! Tuxedo is more American, but the youngsters these days can be pretty Americanised in their language.

I’d say dinner jacket not DJ. My adult children know all of the correct formal dress rules. They learned them from Downtown. 😂

Interesting thread to read from a social perspective. I went to university in the 80s and black tie events were relatively common during that and at work events for the next few years, and even a few weddings. My friends were probably in the lower middle class bracket and buying/borrowing/hiring a DJ was the norm if you wanted to join in, just as I had a couple of reasonably posh (but very cheap!) dresses. None of us had much money - more the "nurse that pint for the entire night" group - but buying a DJ at that time was almost seen as part of your preparation for future work dos. And, we all called it (the jacket) a DJ for short - I have no idea why a PP thinks that's stupid, surely no more stupid than using it for "disc jockey"?! There were no school proms at that time. In terms of percentage of population at the time I think it was something like 8% of people went to university, and the black tie events were perhaps only generally fashionable for a few years so perhaps it's just one of those things that was incredibly common for a section of the population and unknown to the rest. The word tuxedo was very definitely non-British English until the noughties and the rapid spread of US English I would think.

Your post is so confusing.

I don’t think it’s odd that he doesn’t know. As others have said, far more young people would say Tuxedo than DJ. I also think this knowledge is really contextual. I went to a small independent school in the south west and from Y9 onwards, I attended quite a few balls. I went to a girls’ school; there was also a boys’ school in town. Each of the schools had a leavers’ ball at the end of the year. There were also Christmas balls. Outside of school, there were other balls such as the ‘Snow Ball’ every January and a later event in spring. Local charity shops did a roaring trade in secondhand DJs… but I don’t think my friends from outside school ever went to any of these events.

At uni, I went to one summer ball and my graduation ball. Some people wore black tie, but others wore lounge suits.

Having said that, it'd be nice if there were more balls in my day to day life...the only fancy things I go to are out work Christmas party and weddings (nearly all my friends are married now sadly - for my going out)

Your world sounds very narrow.